How does it feel to be part of a Formula 1 team when it gets caught breaking the rules? Our SECRET MECHANIC has first-hand experience of such a scenario

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So we get to the last race of a long season and Red Bull gets thrown out of qualifying for having an illegal car!

The offence in question, the introduction of an over-flexible front-wing flap, could be viewed in different ways: A team just desperately looking to push technical boundaries in the pursuit of performance, along with everyone else, or quite simply as cheating.

The viewing world will have their own opinions, often influenced by their love, hate or indifference towards the outgoing world champion team, but the team itself, the mechanics and engineers inside the garage, might feel somewhat aggrieved at the outcome.

In this instance, where Adrian Newey publicly expressed feelings of dismay at the FIA's decision to report Red Bull to the stewards, citing the fact other teams' wings flexed even more but were not reported, the rest of the team would likely follow suit, rightly or wrongly.

They'd have felt hard done by, like they'd been deliberately targeted and singled out for punishment, feeling that despite all their hard work in desperately trying to catch the dominant Mercedes, someone was trying to peg them back in whatever way they could.

Those feelings were likely purposely created internally by management to galvanise the team after the disappointment, and what a job they did in response on Sunday. There's nothing like feeling an injustice has been done to pull a group together and drive determination, particularly in the ultra-competitive world of F1.

A team like Red Bull will almost certainly emerge from an event like this one stronger as a result, but it doesn't always work that way.
When a punishment's justified, when your team's been effectively caught out blatantly bending the rules or even all-out cheating, that hurts those inside the team in a very different way.

I know first hand how that feels and it's not nice.

Instead of pulling a team together, it does exactly the opposite and rips bits of it apart. I can't think back in history to an occasion when one of the mechanics has made the decision to cheat, to do something he knows is illegal, but that might gain the team an advantage.

Those decisions, rare as they thankfully are, tend to be made by someone high up in the organisation, at senior-management level.

When it happened at one of my teams, those of us inside the garages at the time had no idea of the technical impact that management's ill-advised decision would make.

If consulted, I'm sure almost everyone in the team and in our factory would have opted not to pursue the chosen development path, due to its obvious illegality, but a few key figures, under immense pressure to succeed, took the fateful decision on our behalf.

Inevitably we were found out and punished accordingly and it was that about which I couldn't help but feel hugely angry. I wasn't angry at the FIA, or the stewards, I was angry at my own team management for being so stupid.

My hard work and dedication, together with that of all my colleagues; our commitment and passion towards what we did; the long hours with major personal sacrifice for the cause; all of that was undermined in one self-centred moment of madness.

Everything we did as mechanics and engineers was focused on scoring points, winning races and ultimately chasing a world championship. But unlike the recent Red Bull situation, we didn't have a collective feeling of being unfairly handicapped by those running the sport, but by those wearing the same shirts, those running our very own team.

It didn't make for a great team environment and considerable animosity grew amongst certain factions.

I can imagine the guys at BAR Honda feeling a similar way when they were asked to install the alleged 'secret' fuel tank in 2005 or the Tyrrell mechanics of 1984, who were asked to add lead shot to the car at the last pitstop to bring it back up to the minimum weight limit for the end of the race.

The Renault team must have equally felt incredibly let down by their management in 2008 when they instructed Nelson Piquet to deliberately crash, enabling team-mate Fernando Alonso to win the race in Singapore.

Imagine the heartbreak for the crew of mechanics and engineers on Piquet's car, after working just as hard as anyone else to prepare throughout the weekend, looking for the best result possible, only to discover their own team bosses had made a decision that utterly disregarded all of their efforts.

Not only do you miss out on results you feel you and the team deserve in these situations, even more so when points deductions or race bans are thrust upon you, but you feel tainted as a professional.

Formula 1's a serious business. Those involved at each team are the best around at what they do and they take huge pride from the way their work is perceived. I know I revelled in the fact that people saw F1 team personnel as professionals of an elite order and I felt it was a justified representation of most of us.

When all of a sudden your team is embroiled in a scandal that seems impossible to defend, such as Renault's Singapore crash of 2008 or McLaren's spy scandal of 2007, along with others through the years, it inevitably reflects on all those associated.

If the watching world deems your team to be cheats, then by definition you're viewed by the layman as being one of them and that is the worst thing that can happen to a professional, highly-skilled and proud F1 engineer or mechanic.

Whether or not you think Red Bull was cheating or just pushing boundaries in Abu Dhabi, there'll be some out there who now look at all those in the distinctive blue, yellow and red shirts in a slightly different light.

Just bear in mind that 99.9 per cent of those wearing the shirts had little or nothing to do with the controversial decision in the first place.